Here's what's in Will's column: By 2040 China's GDP will be $123 trillion, and its 40 percent share of global GDP will be three times that of the US's 14 percent! The overwhelming explanation for that dramatic difference lies solely in the disparity between the investments in education made by The Peoples Republic and the investment we're making, made even more meagerly on the excuse that, because of the recession, we cannot afford to do better.
This past Tuesday, February 2, C-SPAN's Washington Journal viewer call-in program featured Stephen Moore, one of Wall Street Journal's editorial board members. (click here) Concerning education, Mr. Moore said the following: "Education is not a federal obligation . . . we should do away with the Department of Education." Somewhat tangential, but nonetheless also rather related, he concluded that, "the best thing the federal government should do is cut taxes."
***
Early in the last decade, my brother-in-law made "the call." My dad was in Henry Ford Hospital, in Dearborn, and . . .. Immediately following I made arrangements to fly the next day from San Josà � to Detroit Metro. From Metro, where my brother-in-law met me with a car, we drove straight to the hospital. I found my dad prostrate in bed and absolutely incoherent. Tubes were leading into and out of every natural orifice, with other tubes and monitoring wires inserted into and leading from others that were not natural.
Three days earlier, he'd undergone surgery that his doctor assured my mom, my sister and her husband, "Had a 50-50" chance of restoring him to what he was before he'd collapsed. For a number of months prior he'd had every classic COPD symptom every medical text listed. He was also 89. That surgery not producing the results the physician and my family had hoped for, and not being competent to issue the necessary authorization (or voice objection) necessary for a succeeding surgery, my mother gave her approval to the physician, who once again assured the family of that 50-50 chance. That second, highly invasive surgical procedure left the fellow as unimproved as the first.
A third surgery had been scheduled for the morning after I'd arrived, once more on that 50-50 bet, and once more sans any suggestion of approval from my dad.
(Here I need to make a parenthetical insertion that years earlier I'd persuaded my parents to complete an "Advance Healthcare Directive," otherwise known as a "Living Will," the purposes of which are to make known to all what an individual's wishes are, should he or she be in a medical circumstance where they cannot make those decisions themselves. My dad, as I strongly suspected the dignified and honorable man would, wanted no extraordinary efforts made to extend his life. The weak link was my mother's and my sister's inability to observe his wishes, in contrast with their own; to save his life at all costs.)
After just a few moments bedside with my dad, I asked my sister, "When are you going to pull the tubes?" Her terse reply was, "When the doctors say there is no hope." (In the fall of 1994, I'd spent a full month in Mountain View, California's El Camino Hospital. An abdominal injury I'd sustained while on a jungle patrol nine years earlier led to small bowel adhesions and the emergency need for lysis of adhesions surgery. Two of them. For the full month, I'd had N-G [Nasogastric] tubing run from each nostril, down the throat to my stomach, constantly pumping the bile that the stomach naturally produces. Nearly as agonizing as the surgeries, just understand they are miserable.) Regardless he couldn't say so, I knew what that 89-year old, very dignified and honorable man was suffering, and I could guess he'd not want any part of a third operation. Poetically speaking, later that afternoon my dad checked himself out of the tomfoolery. He died.
***
I'd rather not guess what the costs of those futile and irresponsible and wholly immoral medical efforts were . . . to you, to me, to the futures of our kids. The decisions to go to such lengths and to expend such outrageous sums represent our national priorities. For any of us who are wont to suggest we truly do care the least for others, for our progeny, we have an obligation to grasp the truth of the travail we're thereby inflicting on our children and on children yet unborn. You cannot spend the same dollar twice. When we spend huge sums trying to seize just one more breath, we're concomitantly denying to others their equal right to a chance to economically have their shot at a natural lifetime of breaths, and a quality of life that is at least the equal of ours.
And it's something I really do not understand about all who prefer to think of themselves as Christians. I've been to a few funerals. The minister, or pastor, or priest, never fails to assure the bereaved that the departed is now "in a better place." He or she has gone to their reward in heaven, that paradise promised by Jesus. It seems to me, a non-believer, that if Paradise was the promise the true believer truly believed was the destination, they'd not want to procrastinate a moment, hopping on the "Last Train to Clarksville."
Based on the treasure we're stealing from our youth during those final months and days, the evidence suggests very few believe as much as they say they do. Deuteronomy 30:19 commands us to "choose life." It doesn't say to throw every last buck into the sewer, trying to avoid what's going to be the conclusion anyway.
My personal prescription: Live everyday to its fullest. Treasure each moment. Then at least have the decency and the courage and grace to surrender gracefully to the inevitable, firm in the believe you have not stolen opportunities from our kids that are rightfully theirs. Today we're not doing as we should. We're hard set at robbing the train. And while we are, China is building the locomotives that will pull our train every which way but loose.
This past Tuesday, February 2, C-SPAN's Washington Journal viewer call-in program featured Stephen Moore, one of Wall Street Journal's editorial board members. (click here) Concerning education, Mr. Moore said the following: "Education is not a federal obligation . . . we should do away with the Department of Education." Somewhat tangential, but nonetheless also rather related, he concluded that, "the best thing the federal government should do is cut taxes."
***
Early in the last decade, my brother-in-law made "the call." My dad was in Henry Ford Hospital, in Dearborn, and . . .. Immediately following I made arrangements to fly the next day from San Josà � to Detroit Metro. From Metro, where my brother-in-law met me with a car, we drove straight to the hospital. I found my dad prostrate in bed and absolutely incoherent. Tubes were leading into and out of every natural orifice, with other tubes and monitoring wires inserted into and leading from others that were not natural.
A third surgery had been scheduled for the morning after I'd arrived, once more on that 50-50 bet, and once more sans any suggestion of approval from my dad.
(Here I need to make a parenthetical insertion that years earlier I'd persuaded my parents to complete an "Advance Healthcare Directive," otherwise known as a "Living Will," the purposes of which are to make known to all what an individual's wishes are, should he or she be in a medical circumstance where they cannot make those decisions themselves. My dad, as I strongly suspected the dignified and honorable man would, wanted no extraordinary efforts made to extend his life. The weak link was my mother's and my sister's inability to observe his wishes, in contrast with their own; to save his life at all costs.)
After just a few moments bedside with my dad, I asked my sister, "When are you going to pull the tubes?" Her terse reply was, "When the doctors say there is no hope." (In the fall of 1994, I'd spent a full month in Mountain View, California's El Camino Hospital. An abdominal injury I'd sustained while on a jungle patrol nine years earlier led to small bowel adhesions and the emergency need for lysis of adhesions surgery. Two of them. For the full month, I'd had N-G [Nasogastric] tubing run from each nostril, down the throat to my stomach, constantly pumping the bile that the stomach naturally produces. Nearly as agonizing as the surgeries, just understand they are miserable.) Regardless he couldn't say so, I knew what that 89-year old, very dignified and honorable man was suffering, and I could guess he'd not want any part of a third operation. Poetically speaking, later that afternoon my dad checked himself out of the tomfoolery. He died.
***
I'd rather not guess what the costs of those futile and irresponsible and wholly immoral medical efforts were . . . to you, to me, to the futures of our kids. The decisions to go to such lengths and to expend such outrageous sums represent our national priorities. For any of us who are wont to suggest we truly do care the least for others, for our progeny, we have an obligation to grasp the truth of the travail we're thereby inflicting on our children and on children yet unborn. You cannot spend the same dollar twice. When we spend huge sums trying to seize just one more breath, we're concomitantly denying to others their equal right to a chance to economically have their shot at a natural lifetime of breaths, and a quality of life that is at least the equal of ours.
And it's something I really do not understand about all who prefer to think of themselves as Christians. I've been to a few funerals. The minister, or pastor, or priest, never fails to assure the bereaved that the departed is now "in a better place." He or she has gone to their reward in heaven, that paradise promised by Jesus. It seems to me, a non-believer, that if Paradise was the promise the true believer truly believed was the destination, they'd not want to procrastinate a moment, hopping on the "Last Train to Clarksville."
Based on the treasure we're stealing from our youth during those final months and days, the evidence suggests very few believe as much as they say they do. Deuteronomy 30:19 commands us to "choose life." It doesn't say to throw every last buck into the sewer, trying to avoid what's going to be the conclusion anyway.
My personal prescription: Live everyday to its fullest. Treasure each moment. Then at least have the decency and the courage and grace to surrender gracefully to the inevitable, firm in the believe you have not stolen opportunities from our kids that are rightfully theirs. Today we're not doing as we should. We're hard set at robbing the train. And while we are, China is building the locomotives that will pull our train every which way but loose.
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